Green Day Say Broadway 'American Idiot' Isn't 'A Rated-PG Affair'

'We're kind of overwhelmed a little bit,' Billie Joe Armstrong says of Broadway debut.

On Wednesday at New York's St. James Theatre, previews finally began on Green Day's long-in-the-works "American Idiot" musical, which bowed last year at Berkeley Repertory Theater and then underwent some tinkering before making its way to Broadway.

And even for a band that's toured the world, sold millions of albums and seen pretty much everything, the Great White Way was a tad bit intimidating.

"We're kind of overwhelmed a little bit about it being on Broadway, to be honest," frontman Billie Joe Armstrong smiled. "I mean, there are so many superstitions about when you put on a stage production. ... When we were at Berkeley Rep, we did an eight-week run, and it got extended. And then it got accepted here, and this is where you want to be."

Previews of "Idiot" run until April 20, when it will open officially. It's been a fairly whirlwind process, one that the guys never imagined they'd be a part of when they first started their three-chord assault way back in 1987. But in reality, a stage version of their mega-successful 2004 album isn't that much of a leap for them.

"Back then, we never thought we'd be doing this.